Wearables more than trackers…family communicators

December 19, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Zoomed.jpg” thumb_width=”180″ /]This article from Connected World, despite the title of Will your kid wear wearables?, is a look at Revolutionary Tracker, which has developed two products from a GPS-enabled tracker to a simplified smartwatch. Both read to a smartphone for GPS tracking and communication. Where it differs is that the company broadly, not narrowly targets, ‘family tracking and communications’ as a modish wearable–infants, children, special needs children and adults (the autism market which most trackers have concentrated on), older adults and pets. Lone workers are another market, and a newer market: groups such as in camps, school trips and residential communities. It is also unusually made in USA, and the founders already have in the works a more sophisticated-looking design with multiple buttons and text functionality.

Our related recent coverage: KeepUS (UK only), Mindme (also UK),  We’ve covered Lok8U (UK/US) in the past and buddi (UK) as far back as 2009.

Technology to support those at risk of falling: free resource

December 17, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

We have been contacted by Sue Williams, Project Development Manager, ADASS West Midlands, who is keen to promote a free information leaflet about technology to support people at risk of falling, how it can help and how people can obtain it, either through Local Authority Telecare services or self purchase. She is keen for Telehealth & Telecare Aware readers to use it to raise awareness of how technology can play a key role in the support available to people at risk of falling and their families and carers.

She explains that in 2012 it was estimated 800 people fell daily in the West Midlands where fall detectors were an under-used resource. By sending an alert so that someone knows a person has fallen, a fall detector does make a difference to living independently by restoring confidence. And of course if someone does fall, getting help quickly makes a real difference as there is a very strong direct correlation between recovery and how long people lie on the floor after a fall; the speedier the response, the lower the risk of hospital admission, and the shorter the length of hospital stay & subsequent support requirements on discharge. (more…)

DARPA Robotics Challenge field competition

December 17, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Mettle-and-Metal.jpg” thumb_width=”175″ /]This weekend (20-21 Dec) in far-south (and warm) Homestead Raceway, Florida the outdoor ‘field’ round of the DARPA Robotics Challenge [TTA 2 July, 22 June] will take place. Robots will win on their performance in disaster response situations–both man-made and natural. Robots will be measured on eight tasks to measure 1) performance in ‘human’ environments, especially degraded ones; 2) ability to use human tools from small to large and 3) usable by those skilled in disaster response who aren’t robotics experts. From the article, the observers will be ‘watching paint dry’ as robots currently perform at the level of a one-year-old, at best moving rather slowly as 30 minutes is allowed for each task, at worst falling a lot. But it’s understood that this establishes a Robot Baseline. Wonder if the researchers and brass will be taking bets on Chiron, Kaist, Valkerie, SCHAFT, THOR, and Robosimian. Final will be in 2014. Mettle and Metal (Armed With Science) Attendance is free and public–and also livestreamed. Information at the Robotics Challenge website.

Making robotics news is Google’s acquisition of Boston Dynamics, designer of one of the competitors, Atlas.  Atlas’ well-publicized stable mates largely mimic animals–BigDog, Cheetah, WildCat, Sand Flea–along with Atlas’ older human-form brother, PETMAN. NBC News wonders what Google’s intense and somewhat covert interest in robotics (nary a peep heard lately from past purchases Meka and Redwood Robotics) really means, but hasn’t answers. Why does search giant want to be ‘BigDog’ of automation?

Around the mHealth Summit in 70 pictures

December 17, 2013 | by

Courtesy of mHealth Insight/3G Doctor, David Doherty takes the LIFE magazine approach and delightfully, you feel like you are there. He hosted a get-together at his booth on Monday (many pics), stops by AliveCor, Alere Connect (hello Kent Dicks), the Venture+ Forum (see Lois Drapin’s earlier article; hello Richard Scarfo, director of the Summit and Pat Salber of HealthTechHatch crowdfunder and the DoctorWeighsIn), VNA Health Group, investor in many things Esther Dyson, Google Glass Explorers, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smartwatch and the ‘panini generation’ courtesy of AT&T ForHealth. But you’ll have to page all the way down to see the last shot of an ‘wild, wooly and yo-ho-ho’ AliveCor demo in My thoughts on the 2013 mHealth Summit as it happens…

3D printing for medical uses spotlighted

December 17, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Heart-blood-volume_0.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A newcomer to the health tech blog scene, InternetMedicine from John Bennett MD of Miami, Florida, presents an overview on 3D printing plus videos:  printing tissue (including the cartilage of a human ear), customized prosthetic limbs, customized exoskeletons (see Editor Charles’ bionic arm article), a personalized airway splint (caught at the NYeC DHC), bone scaffolds and cardiac models. 2014 may be the year of 3D printing for medical. 6 Promising Medical Applications of 3-D Printing

“Ageing Well – how can technology help?” – RSM conference report

December 16, 2013 | by

The Royal Society of Medicine’s Telemedicine & eHealth Section held its annual conference at the end of November, on the topic of how technology can help people age well.  As the organiser I was not able to be in every session, so the following are the highlights of what I was present for.  Many people commented that the quality of presentations was extremely high; feedback was very good.

Baroness Masham of Ilton opened the conference describing loneliness as one of the challenges of ageing well.

Jon Rouse, Director General for Social Care, Local Government & Care Partnerships, Dept. of Health, continued the theme explaining that older people will increasingly want to continue earning money and play a full role in society: the antidote to loneliness.   (more…)

Telefonica and Capita to partner on eHealth

December 16, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Telefonica-logojpg.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Five months after pulling out of the telehealth market in the UK, Spain’s Telefonica has struck a partnership to develop eHealth solutions. In a recent press release Telefonica announced a “global partnership agreement” with Capita “to deploy innovative communications and telehealth technologies”. According to the release Telefonica is set to enhance its portfolio of eHealth services with clinical content.

One of the three criteria for choosing Capita as its partner is stated as Capita’s NHS Direct website for the UK Department of Health. However, the same NHS Direct service was said by a Department of Health spokesman earlier this year to have “struggled to meet the standards required” (more…)

Is the ‘last mile’ of app certification efficacy metrics?

December 15, 2013 | by

News and announcements around app certification definitely were hot topics in the past week or so, but are they more heat than light? Do these certifications adequately address efficacy? Stephanie Baum, in her follow-up to the Happtique kerfuffle in MedCityNews, opens up the discussion with the proposition: “It seems like there needs to be some way to prove that apps actually help people.” Bradley Merrill Thompson of Epstein Becker & Green points out “It’s certainly useful to know that an app works from a software perspective reliably, but it is even more valuable to know that the app can actually improve health.” While Happtique certification standards have a gap here, this Editor would point out that they were evolved nearly two years ago when the reporting/analysis needed for this was largely not available. Newer programs such as Johns Hopkins’ mHealth Evidence and the new IMS Health AppScript [TTA 15 Dec] can dip into the ‘big data’ pool far more effectively. Will Happtique be able to address this, or leave the ‘last mile’ to others? And what is the real and quantifiable demand for app certification anyway? Health app prescribing by physicians is a question mark in this Editor’s observation; the larger market may be health plans and programs such as Partners HealthCare’s Wellocracy, Cigna’s GoYou  and Aetna’s CarePass.

EHR interoperability redux for VA, Department of Defense (US)

December 15, 2013 | by

Back in late February, the US Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs announced that they would not achieve their goal of a single EHR by 2017, and would stick with their creaky AHLTA and VistA systems for the foreseeable future [TTA 3 April]–along with the general lack of interoperability–eyes rolled at the $1 billion down the drain, but seemingly not much else budged. (And this does not include the $4 billion spent on failed updates and fixes in both systems–TTA’s ‘Pondering the Squandering’, 27 July) To this Editor’s utter shock, the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), agreed to by the House and Senate this week, mandates a plan for either interoperability or a single system by 31 January–about 6 weeks from now–and to adopt it by 2016. Moreover, both systems must be interoperable with private providers based on national standards by 1 October 2014. A close reading of the NextGov article indicates that the bill adds levels of complexity and perhaps unworkability. Getthereitis, anyone?–or does this sound like Healthcare.gov, redux? FierceMobileHealthcare

And it takes a grad student to find a major info security flaw in VistA.  (more…)

Further evidence of brain affect of sub-concussive blows

December 15, 2013 | by

The body of research on the effect of sub-concussive blows to the brain is still developing. This recent study published this month in Neurology (abstract only) of  80 nonconcussed varsity football and ice hockey players and 79 non–contact sport athletes in a Division I NCAA athletic program concluded that head impact exposure negatively affected verbal learning and memory plus changed white matter by the end of the season. The subjects were evaluated before and after the season with brain scans plus learning and memory tests. All wore instrumented helmets that recorded the acceleration-time history of the head following impact. “A total of 20 percent (more…)

IMS Health enters health app ranking, prescribing

December 15, 2013 | by

Global healthcare informatics provider IMS Health during mHealth Summit announced its entry into mHealth prescribing and evaluation with AppScript. They also are getting into the development standards business with AppNucleus, a hosting platform that from the description, will guide developers in designing secure, HIPAA and HITECH Act compliant apps using IMS Health information and data analytics. AppScript uses a proprietary methodology called AppScore to classify and evaluate apps based on functionality, peer and patient reviews, certifications, and their potential to improve outcomes and lower the cost of care. According to Information Week Healthcare, AppScore includes 25 criteria developed by IMS and its physician advisors (more…)

23andMe as Rorschach test

December 14, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/rorschach1.jpg” thumb_width=”125″ /]Just like the good doctor’s ink blot, there’s a lot of ‘reading into’ the travails of genomic ‘spit test’ 23andMe. Blogger PF Anderson, the Emerging Technologies Librarian for the University of Michigan Health Sciences Libraries, has collected them in pithy quotes and citations. For your weekend or holiday exploration: Collecting Thoughts on the FDA vs. 23andMe

Happtique halts app certification on data security concerns

December 13, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

Health app industry self-policing and ‘trusted sourcing’ credibility at stake?

Updated below. Last week, after Happtique announced its ‘Inaugural Class’ of 19 certified apps [TTA 2 Dec]–certified on their standards of operability, privacy, security and content–a young HIT software developer, Harold Smith III, discovered some major security flaws in two of them: MyNetDiary’s Diabetes Tracker and TactioHealth5. User names and passwords were stored in plain text files–not encrypted–and Mr. Smith then subjected them to a ‘man in the middle attack’ (MITM) which he explains as “…where a nefarious source intercepts your communication from the App to the server. They decrypt the SSL connection, pull out your data, and send the data on to the server.” Both failed. Worse, the ePHI (ePersonal Health Information) of both were not sent in a secured way and not stored in secure, encrypted files. After advising both companies of the problems (including one of these companies in person at the mHealth Summit), as well as Happtique, and receiving no satisfactory response after days passed, Mr. Smith went public Tuesday and Wednesday on his blog mHealth and Mobile Development. Both articles deserve careful reading. Our readers with software development background will appreciate 1) his meticulousness and 2) his ire not only at Happtique but their validator, Intertek, at the poor technical quality of their vetting; the non-techies like your Editor will appreciate the clarity of his writing.

Small blog, big impact today. Happtique has suspended its certification program (website notice) and on its website now has revised certification standards. Regarding the credibility of Mr. Smith, (more…)

Feros Care ponders what is beyond the telehealth pilot

December 12, 2013 | by

The trouble with trials and pilots is they come to end. As the two-year pilot in Coffs Harbour, Australia, looms ahead Glen Payne, CIO of Feros Care has told iTnews that he is not looking forward to the day he has to go back to his elderly participants to uninstall the equipment.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Ferros-Care-logo.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Under the service, participants are equipped with and trained to use technology such as a digital thermometer, blood pressure monitor, weight scale, pulse oximeter and glucometer according to Your Life Choices. (more…)

Pediatric obesity patients like telehealth support: UCLA study

December 12, 2013 | by

Some positive directional results were obtained by researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles trialling a pediatric telehealth/telemedicine check-up program integrating telemedicine virtual consults at clinic sites. From the 45 young (average age 10), obese patients enrolled in ‘Fit for Healthy Weight’, the 25 patients who were followed after their appointment series had overall positive outcomes and opinions: 86 percent either stabilized or decreased their BMI scores and three of the four patients with high blood pressure normalized their blood pressure; 80 percent were satisfied with the virtual consult system and would do it again. Health check-ins were onsite (more…)